Rasmussen to urge closer co-operation on Irish visit

The Nato chief is expected to argue for closer links on military training

Located on the outskirts of Brussels, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s headquarters stand like an austere shadow against the grey Belgian sky. The warren of offices and chambers, hidden behind a flurry of flags, has been Nato’s home since it moved from Paris in 1968.

Formed as a transatlantic defensive alliance after the second World War, Nato is still the world’s largest military alliance, accounting for about half of global defence spending.*

Tomorrow, Anders Fogh Rasmussen will be the first Nato secretary general to officially visit Ireland when he attends an informal meeting of EU defence ministers in Dublin Castle as part of Ireland’s presidency of the European Council.

Though the first Nato secretary general to visit Ireland, Rasmussen himself, a former prime minister of Denmark, has visited Dublin several times. In particular, he recalls a visit in May 2004 during Ireland’s previous presidency of the European Council.

“On December 13th, 2002, during the Danish presidency, we made that historic decision to enlarge the European Union and we celebrated the event on May 1st, 2004, in Dublin. It was a wonderful day, beautiful sunshine,” he says. But he also mentions this celebration of European enlargement as an example of the “broader historic perspective” that he believes should inform debates about Nato.

“We have managed, through co-operation between Nato and the European Union, to create a Europe that is whole, free and at peace,” he says. “Nato is the world’s most successful peace movement.”

Despite Rasmussen’s comments, the role of Nato in the modern world has been contentious.

Formed from the ashes of the second World War, the organisation was an expression of transatlantic military alliance in the face of rising communist power in eastern Europe. But, ironically, the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact brought with them a questioning of Nato’s function.

With Nato’s raison d’être evaporated, the grounds for its continued existence looked less certain. Justifying its continuation, and adapting to a changed global security environment, has been a challenge for Nato ever since.

One of its main departures in recent years has been the decision to engage in “out-of-area” activity, moving into regions outside Nato’s traditional borders, such as its intervention in the Balkans in the mid-1990s.

The September 11th, 2001, attacks on the US led to the invocation, for the first time, of Article 5 of the establishing treaty, which states that an attack on one member state is an attack on all. This in turn led to the deployment of troops to Afghanistan. A Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) was established in 2003 and is due to pull out by the end of 2014, with Nato moving to a more supportive role.

Afghanistan

How does Rasmussen rate the last decade in Afghanistan? The secretary general hesitates. “I think we are on the right track,” he says.

“Of course, it is a challenging task. I also think it is important to stress you can’t compare Afghanistan with Europe, you can’t set the same standards.

“My criterion for success will be if when we complete our current combat Isaf mission that the Afghan security forces will be capable to take full responsibility for security. I think they will. Already almost 90 per cent of Afghan people live in areas where the Afghan security forces have taken lead responsibility. By mid-2013 I would expect all of Afghanistan to have been handed over to lead Afghan responsibility.”

The deployment in Afghanistan has inevitably opened up questions about how much further Nato is prepared to go in terms of out-of-area intervention.

With the emergence of Islamic terrorism around the fringes of Europe’s borders, will Nato’s out-of-area mandate apply to northern Africa, for example?

“We have no intention to intervene in north Africa. I don’t see a role for Nato in Mali, as an example,” says Rasmussen.

“Nato can’t be the world’s policeman who travels from country to country to solve crises. That’s not possible. But, as we saw in Libya, we can take action if needed, for instance to fulfil a United Nations mandate. It was a mandate to protect the civilian population in Libya against attack. We did so successfully: we prevented a massacre on the Libyan people. But in other cases there may be different conditions, a different situation, and in those specific cases we conclude that a military solution is not the right way forward, and Syria is an example.”

Costs

While justifying lack of action in certain conflict zones is one issue for Nato, rationalising increased defence spending to a war-weary public is another. With the conflict in Afghanistan spanning more than a decade, obtaining public and political support for military investment is difficult, particularly in an age of austerity. It’s particularly a problem for Europe, Rasmussen believes.

“By the end of the Cold War, around 20 years ago, European Nato allies represented about a third of the overall defence expenditure. Today it’s just about 20 per cent,” he says.

Rasmussen argues that maintaining investment is vital. While Nato may not intervene everywhere, it needs to maintain its “operational edge”, in particular to develop capabilities against new forms of threat, including cybersecurity, missile technology and even piracy.

“We need a strong multinational co-operation to address these . . . To that end it’s very efficient to have an alliance with tried and tested command and control structures, readiness to defend and protect if needed so that we don’t have to start from scratch each and every time we see a threat.

“I’m a politician: I know very well the political reality. We live in a time of economic austerity, governments are forced to carry out deep cuts in public finances in order to reduce their deficits. But there is also a lower limit as to how little nations can spend on defence.”

The other issue confronting Nato is the question of enlargement, and particularly its move to the east. Nato has 28 member states, and 22 associated nations, including Ireland, that are involved through Partnership for Peace (PFP) programmes. Ireland joined the PFP in 1999 and is currently contributing to the Nato-led peacekeeping operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Previously, Ireland supported the Nato-led operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Neutrality

Rasmussen’s views on Ireland’s relationship with Nato are couched diplomatically, unsurprisingly.

“We have a very well functioning partnership between Ireland and Nato, a partnership that fully respects Ireland’s policy of neutrality.”

Nonetheless, Rasmussen is expected to argue for closer co-operation between Ireland and Nato in a speech to the Institute of International and European Affairs tomorrow evening in Dublin, particularly in the area of military training and capability. He is also expected to highlight the benefits Nato partnership has brought to Ireland.

Rasmussen argues that co-operation with Nato allows smaller states to engage in international peacekeeping, something they would never be capable of doing alone.

“I also come from a smaller country, Denmark, and like Ireland we appreciate very much having a strong United Nations as a guarantor of international law and international rule of law.

“Ireland contributed to Nato-led operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo. These operations are UN mandate operations. It’s very difficult for individual countries to execute such operations but in collaboration with others you can.”

Rasmussen says he would “absolutely” welcome any application by Ireland to join Nato, but stresses it is a question for Ireland. “We don’t interfere with such decisions. They are purely national decisions. We have a Partnership for Peace partnership and we highly value that. We look forward to further developing that but it is for Ireland to decide its relationship with Nato or any other organisation.”

As for the enlargement of Nato to the east – Nato has added a swathe of former communist countries since 1999 – Rasmussen is unambiguous.

Russia

“We know that the Russians have some concerns when it comes to our open-door policy, but I think that the situation is quite simple. I consider it an inherent right for each individual nation to decide whether it wants to become a member of an alliance or not, and which alliance. That’s really a national decision and it’s not for Russia to decide. It’s for Nato and each individual aspirant country to decide.”

He also points out that, ultimately, Nato and Russia’s aims are aligned and enlargement has benefited both.

“For centuries it’s been Russia’s ambition to ensure stability along its western border, and thanks to our open-door policy, thanks to the enlargement of the European Union and Nato, we have contributed to stabilising the situation in central and eastern Europe.

“We have promoted freedom, democracy and prosperity and at the end of the day that is also in Russia’s interest.”

*This article was edited on February 11th, 2013 to correct a factual error